H&R Block Touts Focus On Gaining, Keeping Clients

DANA FIELDS

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Tax preparation giant H&R Block Inc. hopes to attract new clients in the coming year with better service at its offices and advertising that reminds the public of its traditional strengths, Chief Executive Officer Russ Smyth said Thursday.

Smyth, who joined Block in 2008 after 21 years with McDonald's Corp., told shareholders at the annual meeting that the company will also offer reduced prices to selected groups of customers most affected by the tight economy, such as young and lower-income taxpayers.

Block has been tightening its focus on tax preparation services as it sheds some of the non-tax businesses it entered in the 1990s, including subprime mortgage and investment advisory divisions.

The company is recovering gradually from the losses or expenses it sustained in those ventures and has undertaken significant cost-cutting. For fiscal 2009, which ended April 30, Block earned $485.7 million, or $1.45 per share, compared with a loss of $308.6 million, or 94 cents per share, during the same period a year earlier.

But its surest route to sustained growth of profits is adding clients, Smyth said — and the roughly 21 million returns it prepared in the 2009 tax season were down 3.1 percent from the previous year.